This weeks portrait work

Graham, South Manchester

Steven, Rusholme, Manchester

Terry, Levenshulme, Manchester

In touch with nature... some what.

I have been shooting film...

  Cropped Field

High Weeds

White Blossom

Long Grass

Sundripped Path #2

Weekly Update #2

Walls 

I have been shooting recently, if just on the whim of attention or the things I have been actively seeking out, but I have been very interested in images of trees, plants, shrubs and other things sourced with nature.

Cherry Blossom, June, 2011

I came across a photograph I took in the early part of June last year of a pink blossom tree, full bloom. An image that I liked back then when I developed it and one I still enjoy looking at today. 

It was only when I begun to look at hanging plates that my attention moved on to wreathes and flowers in arrangements. But, really, what does it all mean? 

Hanging plates themselves hold this kitsch, increasing their value. These plates which originated in China, can be seen everywhere, from Europe to North America. They have purposes as ideal gifts, and for household decorations. The ones I am more interesting in though, are the ones that carry a motif, almost a moral motif. In themes of relationships, life morals, and so forth. 

These kitsch designs are interesting, there form and structure relates to the ideas of my work.

The plate as an object is surrounded by a golden edge, the first barrier. Within that is the second barrier, the wreath of flowers, and inside that are the some-what special words.

It was from this I begun noticing the involvement of nature with the portraits used in Walls. Now I have also been shooting portraits for a different series of work that looks at males in their own ephemeral landscape that has been on going for over a year Liam #1, June 2011 and Carter, 2011. 

So I want to get out and photograph more images similar to Cherry Blossom, June 2011, and see how they look visually alongside my portrait work, as a trial. 

Liam #1, June, 2011

Carter, 2011

Around the same time I  was discussing work from Canadian photographer or more correctly artist Jeff Wall. In the past he has made images such as The Crooked Path, 1991. A photograph that is a study of human understanding in the simplest forms of how we read a landscape. How do we get from point A to point B?
Not to mention with my previous post looking at the work from Photographer Maureen Drennan, you can see now why I connect with her work so well. There are visual similarities that I enjoyed reading, the colours, the composition and the eye for detail. 

The Crooked Path, 1991, Jeff Wall

And so, these are some of the things I have found myself looking at, and being highly interested in, no matter how visually mundane they may appear. 

Forest, Dovestone, 2012

 Dried Stems, March, 2012

Tangled Shrubs, 2012

Finally I even have this image, which I haven’t scanned in correctly at the right size, or sorted the colour balance correctly, but I wanted to just be able to see if it had any qualities I wanted to keep. I suppose I like the variation within it.  

Untitled, Houldsworth, 2012

Untitled #2 Houldsworth, 2011

Weekly Update #1

Work

If you haven’t made a serious list with a good plan of action on the Sunday expect to have a slow start to the week, which is what I had on Monday. 

I had a brief list formed in my head, firstly I was to get some prints window mounted, and back with mount card to give them a more solid feel for portfolio purposes, secondly, decide which three images from Nick’s shoot to print on 20”x24” paper, and thirdly, prepare things for the fundraising events such as the Thursday night film screenings  and the portrait head shots for the ‘Manchester to London’ project.

None of this actually went to plan, marking Monday the start of the week a fail, fortunately Tuesday was the day I was able to get on to the main tasks. I managed to complete the prints of Nick, with them looking like this sat along side the ones of Monika.

I was given the go ahead create duplicates of the same large print once I had the right colour balance sorted out. I always create three prints there and then of one image just for future opportunities, saving me the time of having to get into the darkroom again, and waste paper getting it right all over again.

Just as the darkroom printing of the Monika prints was difficult so was Nick’s. Partly reason to why Monday failed for me, I underestimated the concentration required in printing something of this scale and tricky. 

Looking at these lined up together, they work quite well. Though they appear as a series of photographs here there is a real level of intimacy being revealed in each image. Chances are I will only be able to have a selected couple of prints up for an exhibition, however, looking at these if I had the opportunity to exhibit the whole project I would  grid them as the picture above, very Eija-Liisa Ahtila like. 

Daniel Meadows 

Wednesday, perhaps one of the most hectic days I have had to experience this year so far. It saw the arrival of a guest speaker, great documentary/portrait photographer Daniel Meadows, who's work now veers toward multimedia elements such as short digital stories.

Inspirational talker, and someone we can relate to as a former student of the Manchester School of Arts, which back in 1970 was called Manchester Polytechnic, ha.

The photographs here are all taken from Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s 

Untitled
June Street, Salford, February-April 1973

Brighton, Sussex. May 1974

Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria 1974

All pictures are copyright © Daniel Meadows except for the June Street, Salford which is copyright © Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr.

That day also saw me take the lead in photographing a keen student from the Royal Northern College of Music, who needed his portrait taken for an upcoming performance in the college. Due to the incredible (almost ridiculous) amount of people in and about the studio this week I had no choice but to do the shoot in the daylight studio. Which was a very odd set up for me as all the other shoots had taken place in the regular studio, not to mention, I had never used the daylight studio before! Getting the right white balance was the hardest part, however, in the end with the help of Luke and Martyn we managed to get this student what he wanted! In 30minutes!